New Year's Day is creeping up on us, and to celebrate we decided to look back on the year 2014 and its celebrity moments. It's always interesting to see what and who matters to us when it comes to entertainment news. The A-list certainly created headlines that have stuck around for weeks because they did something that blew our minds. Sometimes the reason for the headline was plain strange, sometimes it was sad, and others were shocking!
1. Rihanna returned to Instagram.
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2. Emma Watson launched "HeForShe" gender equality campaign.
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3. Here Comes Honey Boo was canceled.
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The reason for it really threw us.
4. George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin got married.
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We never thought we would see the day that this bachelor settled down.
5. Robin Williams passed away.
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6. Lupita Nyong'o won "Best Supporting Actress" at the Oscars for her awesome performance in 12 Years A Slave.
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7. John Travolta totally flubbed Idina Menzel's name at the Oscars.
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8. Stephen Colbert had his final
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9. Rumor of Idris Elba being the next James Bond hit the web.
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10. Kim Kardashian's crazy "break the internet" photo shoot was revealed. Then the spoofs came in and made our life!
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11. Jennifer Lawrence along with many other female celebrities' nude photos were leaked. We couldn't help but say...
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12. Nicki Minaj's provacative "Anaconda" video released.
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13. Solange Knowles got married.
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14. The Kimye wedding happened.
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15. How I Met Your Mother ended and we didn't know how to feel after it broke its promise to us.
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Which celebrity moments really blew your mind in 2014? Tweet us your answers using the Twitter handles below!
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Mark Hamill sent Star Wars fans into a frenzy when he was revealed as the secret cast member at the live reading of The Empire Strikes Back on Thursday night (18Dec14).
Director and Live Read series organizer Jason Reitman had previously announced that Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul would be playing Luke Skywalker and J.K. Simmons would portray Darth Vader at the performance in Los Angeles. Reitman had kept the remainder of the cast a secret, and fans leaped to their feet and screamed when he introduced Hamill, the original Luke Skywalker, onto the stage to play two roles - the evil Emperor Palpatine and Jedi warrior Obi Wan-Kenobi.
The cast was rounded out by Jessica Alba as Princess Leia, Ellen Page as Han Solo, The Office star Rainn Wilson as Chewbacca, and Stephen Merchant as C-3PO. Reitman contributed whistling and beeping noises as the R2-D2 droid.
In the Live Read series, the cast is not allowed to prepare ahead of the performance and the actors first read the script onstage.

Image Entertainment via Everett Collection
Dean Koontz has really struck a gold mine with the character of Odd Thomas: a young out-of-work fry cook in the fictional Californian town of Pico Mundo who has the ability to see and communicate with the dead. Koontz has written seven novels starring Thomas (using the character more than any other protagonist) as well as a graphic novel. And now, Odd Thomas is setting up to hit the big screen. The film will be based the eponymous first novel to feature Odd Thomas, with Anton Yelchin playing the character and Willem Dafoe playing his friend Chief Wyatt Porter. 50 Cent is listed as a cast member too, which should make it interesting.
What makes Thomas so different from the other heroes from Koontz's books is his humility and willingness to poke fun at himself, and we're hoping this, more than anything, carries through in the film. Read any of the Odd Thomas novels and you'll pick up a definite sense of self-deprecation. He freely admits that he's just an ordinary person trying not to get killed by bad guys while he also tries to better understand his ability. This is why people have really latched onto the character and his girlfriend Stormy (though Koontz still has the trouble of picking good names for the people in his books), and it's an element that needs to be present for a screen adaptation to work.
Another favorite feature of the books: dead celebrities. In the stories, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Alfred Hitchcock show up to see if the young man can discern exactly what it is that killed them and how they can cross over to the other side. I didn't see anybody listed on the cast page for roles like that, so I'm hoping for an uncredited appearance. Not having these people show up would be as bad as leaving the gods out of Troy... and we all know how THAT went.
There have been several stabs at Koontz novels: Phantoms with Rose McGowan, Ben Affleck, and Liev Schreiber. Hideaway with Jeff Goldblum. Sole Survivor with Billy Zane. Something just seemed off with these adaptations on the big screen, though; the spirit of the novels weren't really captured. The characters in those books never seemed to leap off the page the way Thomas does. In fairness, there was a good TV movie adaptation of Intensity, which had a pre-Dr. Cox John C. McGinley as a homicidal murderer who also happened to be a police chief. But we're hoping for "great" with Odd Thomas.
Koontz has not had as much luck in the celluloid world as the person he's most compared to, Stephen King. It hasn't seemed to bother him as he continues to write what seems like two books or more a year. After several years in limbo thanks to dueling production companies, we'd like to see Odd Thomas really take proper form on the big screen.
Odd Thomas hits theaters on February 28.
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Celebrity Apprentice without Gary Busey is a bit like Donald Trump without his hair. On a whole, it might look better, but it's missing that signature touch that made it terrible. And, though it seems contradictory, Celebrity Apprentice needs to be terrible to be good.
Otherwise we get what we got Sunday night: A handful of semi-intelligent C-listers pulling together a semi-professional presentation for a semi-famous resort. There were, like, no mechanical dogs throughout the episode! I mean, Trump even had to pay the Earth 10,000 gold coins and two escorts to shift its tides and make it snow in New York City in order to give this episode some drama. (Let's give 'em 15 inches. It's gonna be HUGE.)
But there were a handful of ridiculous moments throughout the episode, which saw the contestants hosting a party in a Barclays Center suite for Foxwoods Resort Casino. This is Celebrity Apprentice after all!
Roger Klotz's TV ComebackOr was I the only one to notice Foxwoods executive Scott Butera's uncanny resemblance to Doug's mortal enemy?
Teller Talks!Why Penn Jillette's famed other half couldn't use text messages to relay his difficulty getting into the snow-plagued city is beyond me — especially when Teller insisted on silently staying in character once he arrived to the set. (I suppose Teller can only be seen and not heard, or heard and not seen, which doesn't make him a good candidate for the Milford School.) Still, you have to hand it the magician for helping his showbiz partner — I'd rather swallow a box of needles than deal with connecting to New York via Philadelphia via San Francisco. (And for air travel to get him there on time? That's the real magic trick!)
"If I Do Get Punched in the Mouth, Is It Really a Big Deal?"I can't be the only one who hoped Teller didn't show up to watch future task winner Lisa Rinna attempt a dangerous juggling trick with Penn. And I can't be the only one that hopes NBC spins off this season of Celebrity Apprentice into Working Like Magic: The Penn and Lisa Show. This really is the best duo to hit Celebrity Apprentice since Busey and the alien living inside his soul.
Trace Is One Notch Above DeathMarilu Henner was certainly right in her observation, yet Trace Adkins also happened to be one of the more entertaining things about this ho-hum episode of Celebrity Apprentice. And when you find yourself most entertained by a bored country star talking about breasts, you know it's time to switch to Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Inside the Actor's Studio, Working Like Magic: The Penn and Lisa Show — anything but Celebrity Apprentice.
Not Fit For a King of KrunkWith the exception of the guest appearance from pocket country star Hunter Hayes, Power's suite display — inspired by the word "king" — was only slightly less embarrassing than a zipline trip across the room in an office chair. Between taking the word "king" too literally — Marilu was just a few hours short from ordering her own herd of serfs to the suite — and the rollaway chess boards more fit for a fifth grader with grape juice-stained hands than a professional, Power officially has the monopoly on all things adolescent. (The team's A-list entertainment in next week's task: The Rock-afire Explosion.) Though Marilu certainly deserved to be fired, John Rich's insistence that the Project Manager should have known Lil Jon was nicknamed the King of Krunk is ridiculous as claiming Lil Jon should have known Elaine O'Connor-Nardo holds the employee of the month record at Sunshine Cab Company. Yeah, John Rich. Okay.
More:'Celebrity Apprentice': Life is Ruff for Gary Busey, the Mechanical Dog'Celebrity Apprentice': Gary Gets Away With Murder'Celebrity Apprentice': Yep, Gary's Naked
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"Too soon!" It was a literal cry that rang out when trailers for Paul Greengrass' United 93 — an unflinching dramatization of the events that unfolded aboard the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 — played in theaters. As Newsweek reported, the response to the preview was so upsetting to movie patrons in New York City, that it was pulled from certain theaters. The Oscar-nominated United 93 was released in 2006, five years after the tragic events of 9/11, but for many, the nerve of that terrible day in American history still felt too raw.
While United 93 was a cinematic achievement (it has a staggering 91% on Rotten Tomatoes), the hard-to-stomach drama only made $31 million at the domestic box office. That same year, Oliver Stone's notably less critically beloved World Trade Center did better at the U.S. box office, bringing in $70 million. But, with the exception of Michael Moore's anti-Bush administration documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004 (the Palme d'Or winner made $222 million worldwide), no post-9/11 narrative film has been able to appease both wary critics and audiences alike.
RELATED: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Takes Top Honors At 2013 Writers Guild Awards
They have either been too divisive (Reign Over Me, and, of course, Stephen Daldry's 2012's unexpected Best Picture nominee Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which earned just $31 million at the box office and has a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where it's described as "treacly and pretentious") or too exploitative (see: Robert Pattinson's Remember Me) in the past decade to accomplish that. Leave it to Kathryn Bigelow — who turned a suspenseful, if uneasy film about the Iraq War into a Best Picture winner (The Hurt Locker) — to turn the tables once again.
Just 17 months after the killing the al-Qaeda leader, which executed the attacks on America on 9/11 Osama bin Laden, Bigelow's Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty was released. To date, it has made over $88 million, was one of the best critically received films of 2012 (it wound up on over 200 Top 10 lists), not to mention one of the most talked-about and debated films in post-9/11 cinema.
Paul Dergarabedian, Hollywood.com's box office analyst, says the reason why Zero Dark Thirty has clicked with audiences and has the potential to cross the $100 million mark is actually quite simple. "I think because of what this event is and what it represents — the capturing and killing of bin Laden — is one of redemption, of national pride, of hope for the future," he says. "Movies that were related to an unresolved issue and how it effected the U.S., that's not escapist entertainment."
"But, in its most pure form, Zero Dark Thirty is [about] escapism and redemption and validation," Dergarebedian adds. "I think that's why it's doing so well and I think the timing for this is better. It's been over a decade, there is enough time and space between 9/11 ... I think Zero Dark Thirty is just the right movie at the right time."
RELATED: Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar Snub
Maura Spiegel, a professor of American Studies and English at Columbia University, who agrees that Zero Dark Thirty touched on the wish fulfillment aspect of our collective movie going psyche, adds, "We are pretty hungry to understand this war and understand who these people are. To me, one of the primary differences between this story of bin Laden, and 9/11 is that we're not grieving bin Laden's death. The sense that this was an American victory story, as opposed to a tragedy."
But the sense of closure that came with bin Laden's death in the chapter of 9/11 history (Spiegel noted that the film fed some moviegoers' "hunger to see" the actual killing of bin Laden) wasn't just what made Zero Dark Thirty a must-see film. Bigelow's action drama, which stars Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain as a CIA operative relentlessly tracking down bin Laden, has been plagued by controversy. (The film has been under investigation by the Pentagon and the Senate Intelligence Committee.) Those very discussions allowed moviegoers and critics alike to face big, if not unanswered questions. As Spiegel puts it, "Movies about subjects like this are quite preoccupied with questions: Who is the enemy and who are we?"
Author, theorist, and chair of the Philosophy of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, Douglas Kellner, who had a hard time getting past the torture sequences and calls the film a "very uncomfortable experience," says that unlike the Vietnam War era — which had "very little footage of the war and it usually came in days after the event" — this post-9/11 world consumes media differently. "All the media, cable news channels, the Internet, blogging, YouTube — [with] all of this media talking about current politics, there's just mega-interest in contemporary history and people knowing about these events like the killing of bin Laden," Kellner says.
NEXT: Are the torture scenes too soon or just too much?
"I think audiences want contemporary history, whether its political or social. I think people are ready," Kellner adds. "They see so much through the Internet and television and social networking that they're ready for Hollywood to jump right in. I think people are intrinsically patriotic, but if you overdo it and sentimentalize it, it's corny. However, if you do it well ... it definitely works."
Don Mann, a former Seal Team Six member and training officer and author of books like Inside Seal Team Six and the recently released Hunt the Scorpion, loved the film and praises it for allowing the public to see what Seam Team Six is like without putting the team's identity in harm's way. Mann appreciates that Zero Dark Thirty gives viewers an unprecedented look into government and armed forces, particularly the CIA and the SEALs. "I really thought for a Hollywood movie, and we've had some pretty bad Hollywood SEAL movies like Navy Seal, they did an incredible job," Mann says before adding, like so many others, "Except for those torture scenes."
RELATED: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Controversy Continues
According to Mann, the brutal scenes were "grossly over-exaggerated." And those scenes are hindering some audience members' ability to truly enjoy the film. "There's still a debate going on about torture and about how to deal with terrorism," Kellner says, echoing Spiegel, who says, "The representation of the torture raised questions for me"). So while Zero Dark Thirty may have avoided the post-9/11 pitfall of feeling "too soon," perhaps the open wound of the topic of torture didn't. How do we come to terms with that dark page that is still very much open? (Not being able to answer that question, or not providing an easy answer for it, could explain Bigelow's otherwise inexplicable Best Director snub).
Still, if anything, that raging debate and those very moral questions that it has raised has only made Zero Dark Thirty the water cooler film it's become. "Like they say, there's no such thing as bad press, and it's pretty much true, particularly in this case," Dergarabedian points out. "At the end of the day, the numbers don't lie and the fact that a movie based on this subject matter is doing so well proves not only what an important movie it is, but what a good movie it is."
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[Photo Credits: Columbia Pictures]
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With each outing in his evolving filmmaking career actor-turned-director Ben Affleck has amped up the scope. Gone Baby Gone was a character drama woven into a hard-boiled mystery. The Town saw Affleck dabble in action pulling off bank heists many compared to the expertise of Heat. In Argo the director pulls off his most daring effort melding one part caper comedy and two parts edge-of-your-seat political thriller into an exhilarating theatrical experience.
At the height of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 anti-Shah militants stormed the U.S. embassy and captured 52 American hostages. Six managed to escape the raid finding refuge in the Canadian ambassador's home. Within hours the militants began a search for the missing Americans sifting through shredded paperwork for even the smallest bit of evidence. Under pressure by the ticking clock the CIA worked quickly to formulate a plan to covertly rescue the six embassy workers. Despite a lengthy list of possibilities only Tony Mendez (Affleck) had a plan just enticing enough to unsuspecting Iranian officials to work: the CIA would fake a Hollywood movie shoot.
There's nothing in Argo or Affleck's portrayal of Mendez that would tell you the technical operations officer has the imagination to conjure his master plan — Affleck perhaps to differentiate himself from the past plays his character with so much restraint he looks dead in the eyes — but when the Hollywood hijinks swing into full motion so does Argo. Mendez hooks up with Planet of the Apes makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to convince all of Hollywood that their sci-fi blockbuster "Argo " is readying for production. With enough promotional material concept art and press coverage Mendez and his team can convince the Iranian government they're a legit operation. A location scout in Tehran will be their method of extracting the bunkered down escapees.
Without an interesting lead to draw us in Affleck lets his eclectic ensemble do the heavy lifting. For the most part it works. Argo is basically two movies — Goodman and Arkin lead the Ocean's 11-esque half and Affleck takes the reigns when its time to get the six — another who's who of character actors including Tate Donovan Clea Duvall Scoot McNairy and Rory Cochrane — through the terrifying security of the Iranian airport. Arkin steals the show as a fast talking Hollywood type complete with year-winning catchphrase ("ArGo f**k yourself!) while McNairy adds a little more humanity to the spy mission when his character butts heads with Mendez. The split lessens the impact of each section but the tension in the escape is so high so taut that there's never a moment to check out.
Reality is on Affleck's side his camera floating through crowds of protestors and the streets of Tehran — a warscape where anything can happen. Each angle he chooses heightens the terror which starts to close in on the covert escape as they drift further and further from their homebase. Argo is a complete package with the '70s production design knowing when to play goofy (the fake movie's wild sci-fi designs) and when to remind us that problems took eight more steps to fix then they do today. Alexandre Desplat's score finds balance in haunting melodies and energetic pulses.
Part of Argo's charm is just how unreal the entire operation really was. To see the men and women involved go through with a plan they know could result in death. It's a suspenseful adventure and while there's not much in the way of character to cling to the visceral experience tends to be enough.
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When you're in high school it feels like the whole world is against you. In writer/director Stephen Chbosky's high school-set The Perks of Being a Wallflower the whole world may actually be against Charlie (Logan Lerman) whose freshman year of high school should be listed in the dictionary under "Murphy's Law." Plagued by memories of two significant deaths as well as general social anxiety Charlie takes a passive approach to ninth grade. A few days of general bullying later he falls into a friendship with two misfit seniors Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson) who teach him how to live life without fear. Perks starts off with a disadvantage: introverts aren't terribly engaging but Chbosky surrounds Charlie with a vivid cast of characters who help him blossom and inject the coming-of-age tale with a necessary energy.
Set in a timeless version of the '90s Charlie's world is full of handwritten journals mixtapes and a just-tolerable amount of tweed. He writes letters to a nameless recipient as a way of venting a preventative measure to keep the teen from repeating a vague incident that previously left him hospitalized. The drab background of Pittsburgh fits perfectly with Charlie's blank existence. And when he finally comes to life as part of Patrick and Sam's off-beat clique so does the city. Like the archaic vinyl records Sam lusters over (The Smiths of course!) Chbosky visualizes Charlie's journey through the underbelly of suburban Pennsylvania with a raw emotion blooming lights and film grit at every turn. Michael Brook's score and an adeptly curated soundtrack accompanies the episodic affair which centers on Charlie's search for a song he hears during the most important moment of his life.
The charm that keeps The Perks of Being a Wallflower from collapsing under its own super seriousness come from Chbosky's perfectly cast ensemble. Lerman has a thankless job playing Charlie; often constrained to a half-smile and shy shrug Lerman is never allowed to grapple with Charlie's greatest fears and problems until (too) late in the film. Watson nails the spunky object-of-everyone's-affection but she's outshined by Mae Whitman as Mary Elizabeth another rebellious friend in the pack who takes a liking to Charlie. The real star turn is Miller riding high from We Need to Talk About Kevin and taking a complete 180 with Patrick a rambunctious wiseass who struggles to have an openly gay relationship with the football captain but covers his pain with humor. A scene of confrontation — at where else the cafeteria — is one of the best scenes of the year.
Chbosky adapted Perks of Being a Wallflower from his own book and the movie feels stifled by a looming structure. But it nails the emotional beats — there is no obvious path to surviving high school. It's messy shocking and occasionally beautiful. That about sums up Perks.

The remake of Total Recall never escapes the shadow of its Arnold Schwarzenegger-led predecessor — and strangely it feels like a choice. With a script that's nearly beat-for-beat the original film Total Recall plods along with enhanced special effects that bring to life an expansive sci-fi world and action scenes constructed to send eyes flipping backwards into skulls. Filling the cracks of the fractured film is a story that without knowledge of the Philip K. Dick adaptation's previous incarnation is barely decipherable. Those who haven't seen Paul Verhoeven's 1990 Total Recall? Time to get a few memory implants. 2012 Recall makes little sense with the cinematic foundation but it does zero favors to those out of the know.
Colin Farrell takes over duties from Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid a down-on-his-luck factory worker hoping to escape his stagnate existence with a boost from Rekall a company capable of engineering fake memories. Quaid calls the damp slums of "The Colony" home (one of two inhabitable parts of Earth) but he dreams of moving to the New Federation of Britain a pristine metropolis on the other side of the planet. When the futuristic treatment goes awry — caused by previously existing memories of our blue collar hero's supposed past life as a secret agent — Quaid emerges from Rekall with lethal power hidden under his mild-mannered persona. He quickly goes on the run escaping squads of soldiers robots and his assassin "wife " Lori (Kate Beckinsale) all hot on his tail. Total Recall turns into one long chase scene as Quaid unravels the mystery of his erased memories.
But when it comes to answers and heady sci-fi Total Recall falls short. Farrell isn't a hulking action star like Schwarzenegger but he's a performer that can sensitively explore any human crisis big or small. Director Len Wiseman (Underworld Live Free or Die Hard) never gives his leading man that opportunity. Farrell makes the best of the films occasional slow moment but the weight of Recall's mindf**k is suffocated in a series of fist fights hovercar pile-ups and foot chases pulled straight out of the latest platformer video game (a sequence that sends Quaid running across the geometric rooftop architecture of The Colony looks straight out of Super Mario Bros.). When Jessica Biel as Quaid's former romantic interest Melina and Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston as the power-hungry politico Cohaagen are finally woven into Farrell's feature length 50 yard dash it's too late — the movie isn't making sense and it's not about to regardless of the charm on screen.
The action is slick and the futuristic design is impeccable but without any time devoted to building the stakes Total Recall feels more like a HDTV demo than a thrilling blockbuster. The movie's greatest innovation is the central set piece "The Fall " an elevator that travels between the two cities at rapid speed. The towering keystone of mankind is a marvel but we never get to see it explore it or feel its implications on the world around it. Instead it's cemented as a CG background behind the craze of Farrell shooting his way through hoards of bad guys.
Science fiction more than any other dramatic genre twist demands attention to the details. New worlds aren't built on broad strokes. But Total Recall tries to get away with it in hopes that audiences will recall their own movie knowledge to support its faulty logic. The movie repeatedly prompts viewers to think back to the 1990 version with blatant fan service that's absolutely nonsensical in this restructured version (no longer does Quaid go to Mars but there's still a three-breasted alien?). The callbacks may have given Total Recall a "been there done that" feel but rarely is it coherent enough to get that far. By the closing credits you'll be struggling to remember what you spent the last two hours watching.
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Troubled by unfortunate event after unfortunate event The Watch sidesteps faux pas to come out on top as a consistently funny sci-fi comedy that doesn't let its high concept tangle up a bevy of one-liners. The script penned by Jared Stern Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg assumes you've seen a few movies before entering the theater (mainly any sci-fi movie made in the 1980s). "Summer movie logic" is the foundation for The Watch's ridiculous plot which finds four adult nincompoops teaming up to form a Neighborhood Watch trying to solve the murder of a local Costco employee and eventually pursuing a killer extraterrestrial. Instead of making sense of it all The Watch wisely focuses on its four leads: Ben Stiller Vince Vaughn Jonah Hill and The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade — a quartet whose bro banter goes a long way in spicing up the dust-covered material. There's nothing revelatory to be found in The Watch but the cast's knack for improv a poetry of the profane makes the adventure worth…viewing.
Director Akiva Schaffer (Hot Rod) establishes his two-dimensional characters quickly and bluntly smashing together broad personality types like a Hadron Collider of cinematic comedy. Stiller's Evan is a micromanaging do-gooder who can't find time for his wife; Hill's Franklin is a mildly disturbed weapons enthusiast yearning to join the police; Ayoade is the quaint weirdo who joins the Watch to fill the void left by his divorce; Vince Vaughn is Vince Vaughn: a loud crass gent looking for a bit of male bonding. The ragtag team assembles to fight crime but they spend most of their time drinking beers in a minivan — an affair they dub "stakeouts." A perfect opportunity for banter.
For a movie about enforcing the law and alien invasions there's a surprising lack of action in The Watch. Long stretches of the film see the central players yapping back and forth about everything: Russian nesting dolls peeing in cans or the similar viscosities of alien goo and human excrement. Charisma goes a long way and Vaughn does much of the heavy lifting making up for lost time out of the spotlight (he's been virtually nonexistent since 2005's Wedding Crashers). The man spits out jokes like no other — the rest of the cast barely keeps up. Ayoade balances out Vaughn's bombardment with a tempered timed delivery that's uniquely British and rarely found on the American big screen. Even when nothing's happening in The Watch it's rarely boring.
The Watch is at its best when it goes a step further mixing the group in with outsiders and throwing them off their rhythm. Billy Crudup cuts loose as a creepy neighbor and its delightfully weird while the always-impressive Rosemarie DeWitt as Evan's wife Abby brings unexpected warmth to the couple's relationship. Sadly The Watch mishandles its greatest asset: the aliens. The film never finds a pitch perfect blend of comedy and science fiction (Ghostbusters or Galaxy Quest this is not); a few scenes where the two come together hint at the best possible scenario but more often than not The Watch avoids its sci-fi roots. A moment in which the guys haul a dead alien back to their man cave plays like an E.T.-inspired version of The Hangover credits. It's lewd and ridiculous but the rest of the film struggles to maintain that energy.
Stiller Vaughn Hill and Ayoade have all proved themselves able funnymen capable of taking weak and tired material up a notch which they're forced to do in every moment of The Watch. Schaffer can handle his talent but his direction isn't adding anything to the mix. By the third slow-motion-set-to-gangster-rap scene The Lonely Island member's obsession with non-cool-coolness is officially just an attempt at being cool (which is not all that funny). The Watch has a greater opportunity than most comedy blockbusters to go absolutely bonkers: it's rated R. But instead of taking its twist and running with it the movie plays it safe. In this case safe is non-stop jokes about the many facets of human reproduction.